On April 25, 2025, the GW Engineering-hosted Environmental Energy Management Institute conducted a web-based seminar on the appropriate energy analyses by Dr. Karl Hausker, Senior Fellow at the World Resources Institute. Dr. Hausker leads analysis and modeling of deep decarbonization climate mitigation, electricity market design, and the social cost of carbon. He testifies before Congress, lectures widely on deep decarbonization, and led the Risky Business study of clean energy scenarios for the U.S. He has worked for three decades in the fields of climate change, energy, and environment in a career that has spanned legislative and executive branches, research institutions, NGOs, and consulting.
He has led climate policy analysis and modeling projects for USAID, USEPA, the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, the Western Climate Initiative, and the California Air Resources Board. Much of his work has focused on the electricity and transportation sectors, and on low carbon, climate resilient development strategies.
From 2007-2013, Karl was a Vice President at ICF International. He previously served as Deputy Director at the Center for Climate Strategies and as a Principal with Hagler Bailly. Karl lived in India all of 1999 as a Visiting Fellow at TERI. His experience also includes serving President Clinton as Deputy Assistant Administrator in EPA’s Policy Office where he represented EPA in interagency climate policy development and at COP-1, and serving as the Chief Economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources where he worked on a diverse set of issues including electricity restructuring, CAFE standards, alternative fuels, western water policy, nuclear power, and energy security. In his presentation, Dr. Hausker explained that utility-scale solar power and onshore wind power are by far the cheapest sources for new electricity generation, and that across regions, the cost competitiveness of these technologies shows significant variation, but overall, renewables are on a steady path towards outcompeting traditional fossil fuel sources.
However, he explained further that asking, “what is cheapest source of electricity?” is the wrong question, stating that all credible experts acknowledge that the Levelized Cost of Energy measure is simplistic, and risks comparing “apples to oranges.” He said that we need portfolio of complementary technologies to achieve zero-carbon grids that are reliable and affordable, involving low-cost renewables complemented by clean firm power to achieve zero-carbon grids. He stated that “zero-carbon grids are possible with low-cost renewables, batteries, expanded transmission, demand-side management, and clean firm power,” invoking multiple integration strategies.
The George Washington University’s Environmental and Energy Management Institute (EEMI), hosted by GW Engineering, was chartered as a University-wide institute in 2015 to pursue multidisciplinary research, education, and the dissemination of knowledge relevant to the resolution of pressing national and international environmental, energy, and sustainability challenges, including the profound geopolitical, social, and environmental implications of the intertwined issues of climate and energy security.